The Storm
by Cordelia Rose
Summary: This storm is just like any other, except that everything Merlin touches becomes infected with a lilac dust, invisible to everyone in this dimension. For obvious reasons, nobody notices this dust, but they notice that the storm has been going for an unusually long time, and Merlin starts to realise that he feels...well...odd.
1. Chapter 1

_Chapter 1_

_Warning/s: None._

_Disclaimer: I don't own Merlin._

_A/N: So this is just a plotbunny that popped out of nowhere. Honestly, I have no idea what inspired this. I don't have a plan for this story like I usually do, so suggest any ideas you have for the story and I'll taken them into consideration._

_If anyone's concerned about my other stories, I'm not abandoning them, never fear ;)_

* * *

Merlin watched the thunder roll across the sky almost lazily, resulting in a final, booming clap that seemed to explode directly over the castle. The lightning illuminated the sky shortly afterwards in a long, jagged crack that split the heavens in half. The rain was torrential, thick and heavy, a cascade of fat drops of water that was relentless.

Still, the guards were braving the weather, although possibly it was more from the duty of loyalty they held to their king rather than their own personal feelings. Merlin suspected that half of them would, given the chance, come sprinting inside at the first opportunity and settle in front of a blazing fire to warm the blood running through them.

He didn't envy them in the slightest; he was quite content to remain in Arthur's chambers for as long as possible. The king always had a roaring fire that heated the whole room and its occupants, and while Merlin was usually eager to escape back to his own chambers in the evening, tonight he had no wish to scurry through the chilled corridors back to his own freezing room.

He and Gaius had no fireplace, and while Merlin had his magic, he was cautious about using it, lest there be any unexpected visitors. Gaius's joints were never in the best of shape but in the harsh months of the winter, they appeared to seize up more than was usual and his aged guardian found all movement difficult.

Merlin was indignant over this on behalf of his adoptive parent but knew it was pointless to argue with anyone over the matter; it would benefit neither of them and would possibly get one or both of them into trouble.

Merlin stood up from sweeping ash from the fireplace with triumph and surveyed the pristine marble with pride. He may be clumsy, clumsier than any other servant in the castle, and awful at some jobs, but nobody in Camelot could claim to be a better fireplace-sweeper than him. "Finished," he announced for Arthur's benefit.

"Well done," Arthur replied absent-mindedly, not bothering to so much as glance in his direction. His gaze was focused on Guinevere, who was curled up on their bed, the covers lapping at her knees and her nightdress white and delicately embroidered. She had braided her hair and it ran almost fully down her back, and she was frowning at some paperwork clutched in her hands.

Merlin rolled his eyes; Arthur was extremely level-headed the majority of the time, but as soon as he saw his wife even slightly undressed (or sometimes just his wife full stop), his brains liquefied and dribbled from his ears. At this particular moment, Arthur had abandoned his own paperwork in favour of staring at his wife from the table, and Merlin decided to give the two some privacy.

"I should get back to Gaius," Merlin excused himself, bouncing across the room to the door, mentally bracing himself for the cold blast that was inevitable.

"Good night, Merlin," Gwen called after him, raising her voice so it was audible over the storm. A howling wind had started now, rattling the windows and threatening to drown their words out.

"Good night," Merlin returned, and pulled the door open. The gust of cold air was worse than Merlin had imagined, and he winced and shuddered. He made sure to close the door behind him securely to prevent any more of the chilled air entering their chambers. The last thing he saw was Gwen throw the papers behind her, seemingly uncaring that they scattered all over the floors, as Arthur approached and bounded on the beds.

Merlin tried to repress all thoughts of whatever they were about to do from his mind: he really didn't like imagining those things about his friends. He wrapped his jacket tighter around his skinny frame and headed down the many corridors and spiralling staircases to his own quarters. The wind screeched again and instinctively Merlin reached out for something to steady him even though he knew he was quite safe.

With his hand brushing the wall, Merlin trotted down the staircase and along what he thought to be the longest corridor in the castle, unaware of the trail of faintly sparkling, lilac dust he was depositing.

It was a quick, two-minute journey back to the physician's chambers and Merlin was disappointed to find that inside, it was colder than the corridors. "Gaius?" he called, surprised to find that the chambers were quite dark and, on further investigation, empty.

Merlin muttered a spell under his breath and the candles around him all sprung up in flames. With the chambers lighter, Merlin began to hunt and shift through Gaius's work for a note. It was peculiar – there was a potion that seemed to be only halfway made, and a bowl full of unground herbs. He found no note in his search but shrugged off the matter. In the past, Gaius had often been called out to an emergency and had had to drop everything in favour of the crisis, and had not always had the time to leave a note of explanation for Merlin.

Merlin, finding that he was not really that tired yet, decided to finish the work that Gaius had been doing, and recognised the potion as a common cure for a heavy cough. It wasn't strenuous work, and Merlin worked in silence. The light coating of lilac dust he left everywhere he touched was invisible to him.

Satisfied with the result of his concocting, Merlin carefully stored away the spare ingredients and left the small bottle out on the table in case Gaius came back before he woke. He noticed that a few of Gaius's supplies were running low, so he picked up the small slip of parchment that Gaius kept on his low desk and scribbled down which herbs were in dire need of replenishment.

He realised that he was putting off the time that he would have to undress and settle in his bed, and he knew the reason why: there was a small amount of magic in all storms, and it made Merlin uneasy. He didn't like sleeping with a storm on; he always feared that the excess magic in the air would send his own haywire.

At last, Merlin exhausted all means of procrastination and admitted that it was finally time for him to sleep, although he still was not tired. He suspected that the feeling was the storm again, providing him with excess energy, and that made him even more unwilling to fall into an unconscious slumber.

Nevertheless, he jogged into his room and closed his small window, not wanting to hear the shrieking of the wind the entire night. He tugged his shirt off over his head easily, the cold air causing goose-bumps to rise over his skin. Before he stripped down to just his underclothes, Merlin pulled his nightshirt from the closet and covered his torso with the thick fabric.

Merlin kicked his trousers onto the floor and then redressed in his sleeping trousers, picking his clothes up from the floor and stashing them back in his wardrobe. His bed was neatly made from his morning so Merlin clambered into it easily, resting his head on the pillow and staring at the wall opposite him. He dragged the covers up to his chin and whispered an incantation to light an unusually warm fire in the palms of his hands.

Suddenly, maybe from the drain on his magic, he felt his eyelids drooping. He extinguished the fire before he dropped off and then settled down, the lilac dust still not visible to him, even though it coated everything he had laid his hands on.

Merlin closed his eyes and allowed himself to drop off, still uneasy with the storm but now not able to escape the insistent tugging of the dreamland. Unbeknown to him, the lilac dust that he had spread over the walls of the castle had started to awaken.

* * *

_A/N: I am currently running a writing competition for the Merlin fandom - it can be absolutely anything, please check out merlinwriting2014 . tumblr . com for more details (without the gaps, obviously). I hope you enjoyed this chapter!_


	2. Chapter 2

_Chapter 2_

_Warning/s: Just a little bit of…horror? I'm not sure what to call it. Weird trippy stuff, basically._

_Disclaimer: I don't own Merlin._

_A/N: Sorry this has taken a long time – I won't bore you with any excuses but hopefully my updates will be more regular now. Thanks to everyone who's following so far – I hope I won't disappoint!_

_Anyway, I'll let you get on with reading now, and please drop me a review :)_

* * *

Merlin awoke the next morning with a strange shuddering sensation. His body, right down to his bones, was tingling with an odd, chiming feeling, his muscles were taut and difficult to move and his skin was paler than its usual hue. For him, that was more alarming than usual, as he was the colour of a corpse at his best. Now he was practically luminous, and under closer inspection, his skin looked to be _sparkling_ somehow, catching the dim light streaming through his window whenever he moved slightly.

Nevertheless, Merlin kicked the covers from his legs, noting the way that his legs felt heavy when they were raised in the air, as if they were covered in a fine layer of lead. He let them drop back down to his thin, hard mattress with a muffled thump and laid in bed for a while longer, staring up at his roughly-decorated, cracked ceiling.

He must be going insane – the ceiling was glittering as well, just like his arm, a subtle shining. In fact, now that he had noticed the ceiling, the rest of his room was glinting as well. Merlin concluded that it was just his eyesight in the faint lighting of his room, so he stood – pretending that he hadn't noticed the residual ache throughout his body – and headed to his wardrobe. The door was heavier than usual and Merlin had to heave to open it, but put it down to tiredness.

He felt nauseated all of a sudden, when he stepped into the main room of his chambers; there was suddenly an oppressive block of heat that he smashed into like a solid brick wall, unusual in this weather. The storm was still ongoing, or perhaps it was a different storm that had replaced the initial one sometime when he was unconscious.

His eyes stung like they were being pricked by nettles – everything was glittering and shimmering where the light caught it. It caused a strange, underwater-like effect to appear on everything he looked at, but Merlin found that he was not able to direct his gaze upon anything. As soon as he tried to focus on an object, no matter how big or small, it slipped from his eyes, slithering away.

The feeling was not dissimilar to being ill. Alas, Gaius was not back to prepare him a tonic or at least something to dull the pain that sat beneath his eyes, so he headed back to his room gingerly and pulled his usual clothes on.

* * *

Arthur frowned over his papers as his servant stumbled into his chambers. He was almost an hour late for work, and although Merlin was customarily late by now, it was not usually by such a large stretch of time. He was starkly-white, like virgin snow, and his eyes seemed like deep coals sunk into his skull, even with their bright cobalt irises.

He didn't greet Arthur with one of his habitual annoyingly cheerful phrases; nor did he even look Arthur in the eyes, but kept his head faced downwards and his eyes glued to the floor. "Morning," Arthur tried, but elicited no response from his servant. Instead, the younger man shuffled towards the unmade bed and began to slowly, painfully readjust the covers.

"The storm's still raging on," Gwen commented as she stepped out from behind the wicker dressing-screen, her velvet dress trailing on the floor and rustling softly. She smiled at Merlin, but then her smile transformed into a frown when she had no grin in reply, and glanced at Arthur.

"It is," Arthur agreed, and shrugged to inform Guinevere that he knew nothing of Merlin's behaviour, or at least no more than she.

Merlin straightened up from the bed. In his arms were the covers of the bed that were soiled with dirt or sweat or other things that he didn't wish to think about, especially not now when he was feeling queasy already. His head was spinning worse than before and the shimmering that he could see on everything was becoming clearer and clearer, brighter and shinier. He wondered whether he was going mad as he left Arthur and Gwen's chambers in search of the laundry room.

He headed down the corridor and a flight of stairs, pressing his lips firmly together, for fear that words would not be the only things that erupted from his mouth if they were to open. Luckily the windows that lined the corridors of the castle were wide open and the gentle breeze drifted in, caressing Merlin's burning skin pleasantly and bringing his head some relief as he sucked the refreshing air in through his nose.

He deposited the sheets in the laundry room and left as quickly as he could: the laundry room always stank of filth and sweat, and the soap they used was made from pigs' fat – hardly the most inviting stench in the world. He often mused upon how the laundry maids were able to do this job day in, day out without vomiting at least once a week. Then again, maybe they did – he should mention upping their pay to Arthur when he had the opportunity.

With a deep sigh that only he heard, Merlin trooped back to his workplace, each step sending a pulsating pain through his body and each ray of light that poured in through the windows sending a fresh wave of pain to his head.

* * *

Gaius was still not back from his duties; for once, Merlin was grateful for this as he bolted back into his quarters. Running was not a pleasant task but it was necessary: as soon as Merlin reached his room and was able to grab the nearest bucket in sight, he emptied the contents of his stomach. He retched noisily, thankful that there was nobody else around to see him in his disgrace.

His throat burned when he was done, and even the tepid water that he had in a bronze cup by his bed did nothing to soothe the scorching. Merlin staggered into his bed without bothering to undress into pyjamas, or even kick off his boots for that matter, and so tired was he from the day's events that he was asleep within seconds.

* * *

A creature, with wings like a raven's and eyes like an owl's but the body of a monstrous beast, flew by him. Its mouth opened in a wide, mocking grin and then it had vanished in a puff of foul-smelling smoke.

A spear withdrew from the now empty air and a horribly mutilated man stood holding it, a lopsided grin upon his scarred and askew face. When he opened his eyes, they were pure gold, completely covered in the noble colour and unseeing, yet his gaze focused on Merlin. From his mouth poured a string of strange, chanting words which made no sense, yet spoke all of the truths of the universe.

Merlin understood but was completely baffled. He let himself sink through the floor and fell into another world, another dimension. This one had no morphed or misshapen monsters, only naked men and women who were of a pure, dazzling white and stared at him with their milky eyes.

"Where am I?" Merlin wondered aloud, looking around him. The men and women stopped and stared, and then all at once opened their mouths and hissed _Do not speak here_.

Their eyes rolled back into their heads and from the empty sockets poured insects, insects with a thousand legs and spiders the size of his head and some that Merlin had never seen before. Just as they scuttled towards him, Merlin awoke with a start, bathed in sweat and the feeling of a million scuttling arthropod legs on him.

* * *

_A/N: Has anyone got goodreads? I have a link to mine on my profile, please add me as a friend if you have it! And if you don't, I seriously recommend getting it!_


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